


Sirens

by AllTheFeels



Series: AU: Code 187 [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Also a bit of a character study, Domestic Violence, Dungeons and Dragons, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy, There will be comfort in this series I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 18:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12823569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllTheFeels/pseuds/AllTheFeels
Summary: They’re driving down the street to Max’s house when she first sees it, the hint of blue and red in the sky.(This work is a part of a series, but can be read as a stand alone piece.)





	Sirens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arqumentative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arqumentative/gifts).



“I don’t think he can get better.” Lucas said, stinking his nose in distaste. Max shrugged, leaning back further in her chair -she was allowed to watch them play, but not join in just yet. She didn’t really mind, it was obnoxious but clearly Mike was working through something and once he was over it she’d be able to join- and watched as Eleven (or maybe Jane? She was never sure what to call the girl) tried to contemplate the rules of the game. Mike was explaining it to her, holding a little booklet and occasionally pointing to it.

They’d moved their weekly Dungeons and Dragons time from Mike’s house to Jane’s after the third week Mike had spent whining. Max didn’t care much about the location, having friends was something so entirely new to her that frankly, she cared more about that.

Eleven (Jane?) had even spoken to her a few times, and that was when she realized they had more in common than she thought. Before meeting her, Max had thought Jane was untouchable, someone so amazing and so cool she could never even understand her.

Well, on one hand, she was. On another, she was just a girl trying to adjust to life after living through an actual nightmare. She and Max bonded the most over that.

“I mean, since Hopper talked to Mom,” Max said, tugging on a strand of her hair, “And she left Neil and threw us into therapy, he hasn’t been horrible.”

“He’s Billy fucking Hargrove,” Dustin argues back, “He tried to kill Steve.”

“You’re not wrong,” Max sighs, “But I don’t know. It’s-“

“I could have chosen violence,” Jane interrupts, her voice flat and clipped, “I nearly killed just to have some control.”

There’s a long, long moment of awkward silence because, well, Jane is always honest. Brutally so. Usually, the awkward silence dissolves with Mike putting an arm around Jane’s shoulders and Dustin cracking a joke, but, thank god, this time it’s broken by the door of Hopper’s cabin swinging open and Steve Harrington striding in, swinging his keys and yelling,

“All right, kids, party’s over.”

Dustin groans, loud and overdramatic until Steve interrupted him with a casual,

“Dude, I told your mom you’d be home by 11.”

-

They’re driving down the street to Max’s house when she first sees it, the hint of blue and red in the sky.

“Drive faster,” She said, nudging Steve and pointing towards the lights. She’s the only one left by now, given that the drop off order usually left her last.

“It’s probably nothing,” Steve replies, but there’s something tense in his voice, his jaw jumping as he presses down on the gas, pushing the speed limit.

It’s not nothing.

Steve kills the engine by the side of the road, and they stare in silence for a few minutes.

Max’s Mom is outside, her hands shaking as she tries to light a cigarette. There are tears streaking down her face as a paramedic wraps her in a shock blanket. Max’s stomach doesn’t drop until a plain white van pulls up. She knows that that means, she’d seen those vans racing through the streets of California plenty of times before.

It’s a coroner’s van, and she and Steve start yelling at the same time.

Max goes for the door, trying desperately to open it, practically screaming, “Let me _out_!” at the same time as Steve is locking the doors and jumping out of the car, slamming the door and yelling,

“Stay in the car, Max!”

-

Steve had only met Max’s Mom once, around the time she’d left Billy’s father (with the help of Hopper and plenty of support from Joyce). She’d been a broken woman then, bruises on her arms and a tenderness in the way she spoke that indicated something that made his stomach twist.

This? This wasn’t that woman.

She wasn’t looking at anything, eyes wide and hollow. The paramedic had a hand on her shoulder, clearly trying to bring her back to reality, but it wasn’t working.

“Susan?” Steve asks, voice tentative— he feels like if he says anything wrong, he might just break her.

Her head snaps up, she recognizes him, and then she’s hysterical.

“Where’s Maxine?” She wails, pushing away the paramedic and shoving herself into Steve’s personal space, her hands on his chest like she wants to push him as hard as she can, “Where is she?!”

“I left her in the car, I didn’t think...,” He’s just bewildered now, panic settling in his stomach as his ears start to ring, the paranoia associated with the urge to _survive_  nipping at his fingertips, “Susan, what the hell happened? Are you okay?!”

Her body shakes like a leaf, but Susan’s fingers are steady as they close around Steve’s wrist, dragging him to the open door of the house.

“Niel- he, he didn’t....he wasn’t doing well after I t-took the kids,” Susan cries, “He said I didn’t have the r-right to have them, and he was drunk, Steve, I. I could smell it coming off of him, and I tried to lock him out but he pushed his way through the door, and...”

Everything else she says starts to blur into the background, because they’re just close enough to the door that Steve can see a hand.

A very, very grey hand.

And lots of blood.

For a split second, he thinks it’s Billy, thinks that, fuck, he thought that things were finally calming down. He thinks about gym three weeks ago, about his thumb on Billy’s lip, about the way Billy’s lips curled during that bleeding, angry kiss.

Then he looks at the hand again and sees a clump of hair. Blonde hair. Bloody at the root.

For a moment, Steve can hear screams, feel the dogs at his heels, can feel the hot breath of death on his neck.

That’s when he starts hearing Susan again.

“...and he had the gun for a second, b-but Neil grabbed him again and the world just exploded, and there was blood, and then Neil- Neil, he had it again, and it was pointed at me, and he just — he turned it around, and that was it.”

Susan shudders.

“That was it.”

For a moment, she seems old. She still has the blanket on, but it’s fallen to her elbows and she hasn’t bothered to pull it back up. Steve can see blood on her temple, matted into her hair. He looks, and now he sees it on her hands, too. It’s under her nails, caked black and dry.

“Should I take Max to Lucas’s?” Is all he managed to ask.

She nods, lost, staring into the house. She’s looking at that hand.

“Do you want to see her?” Steve asks, and ok, maybe he’s being pushy. But Max needs her Mom right now.

Susan shakes her head.

“Not now. Not with...,” She drifts off, letting one hand push the hair at her temple back, letting something wet and pink-red tinged fall, “Neil on me.”

Steve drives Max to Lucas’s, tells the boy’s parents what has happened, drives listlessly for twenty minutes, then pulls over in front of Nancy’s house and throws up.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Keep in mind that this is NOT tagged as major character death ;) 
> 
> Let me know what you think of the series thus far!


End file.
